The Gaming Den

The main difference between an insta-buff ambush and attacking a fighter in the bathtub is that bathtub fighters are rare. My players could ambush every encounter in a typical adventure without being overly annoyed or having to spend a lot of time investigating.

But it would be hella annoying for them to wait around and try to find out when somebody's taking a bath. It'd be even more annoying to wait aroudn and try to find out when each person is taking a bath.

Contrast to a buff spell. If they aren't always on, or quickened, it doesn't matter when the ambush happens. No one I know has ever waited until a wizard has spend all her spells, and then ambushes them. That's the equivelant of ambushing a fighter in the tub.

Never underestimate the power of annoyance in a game that people play for fun. Or at least the people I play with.

K wrote:How is that different from ambushing a fighter in the bath?

Because you're actually adventuring. The Cleric and Wizard already "bathe" for a whole hour every day, the hour that they prepare spells in. This is like unto the fighter going to sleep or taking a swim in the lake, only more so.

There is already a time during everyone's day when they are actually helpless, but if you make a portion of your class features shut off whenever you are "not in combat" (even while adventuring) you're essentially taking the helpless phase and extending it to "all the god damned time".

And I ask you: Why would we want to do that? What pressing advantage is there to the initial listen check determining whether you live or die in every combat past 6th level? Why should spellcasters, and by extension parties which have spellcasters in them, be supernaturally vulnerable for more hours of the day?

As the DM you can always have spellcasters jumped while they are preparing spells. Even if they are in a rope trick, you can still do it with enemies that see the invisible. You have that power, the PCs can be glorified commoners in any fight you ever throw at them on a whim. Isn't that enough?

-Username17

Rather than spending slots they were not going to use anyway to become better than all the other PCs, spellcasters can invest in buffing magical equipment like any other character. They don't ever have to be "supernaturally vulnerable."

I mean, right now with the all-day spells, they never have a time when they are vulnerable. Even when they are preparing spells, they still have all day spells ticking away with duration time to spare.

While the fighters have to remove armor to sleep, the druid just Wildshapes into a bear or something.

Spellcasters ae walking around being supernaturally invulnerable while other PCs have limits and liabilities.

Spellcasters can stack together class features(spells) in ways that other PCs cannot to make them better than classes designed to do the same things.

By changing buff spell durations, you force spellcasters to invest in equipment(which they don't have to do at all now) and greatly lessen their ability to dominate the game at higher levels(8+).

K wrote:By changing buff spell durations, you force spellcasters to invest in equipment(which they don't have to do at all now) and greatly lessen their ability to dominate the game at higher levels(8+).

No. You force people to get shot inthe eyeball when their buffs are down. Even when GMW is "only" up for eight hours per day, you're still a retard for investing in a "real" enhancement bonus on your sword.

If you want to reduce the influence of buff spells, reduce their power or simply remove some of them. Don't make people do all of their exploration by rowing their bathtub around!

-Username17

Frank wrote:No. You force people to get shot inthe eyeball when their buffs are down. Even when GMW is "only" up for eight hours per day, you're still a retard for investing in a "real" enhancement bonus on your sword.

If you want to reduce the influence of buff spells, reduce their power or simply remove some of them. Don't make people do all of their exploration by rowing their bathtub around!

Removing buff spells destroys a whole aspect of the game and penalizes players who aren't breaking the game.

Reducing them in power simply doesn't matter at all since at mid level the biggest offenders can still stack 15-20 spells and have them last all day. Even if those spells only granted a non-stackable +1, the game would still be stacked far in the favor of spellcasters.

As long as buffs like GMW last all day, spellcasters don't even need equipment. Right now, if the spellcasters in the party gave every magic item get should get to the non-spellcasters, and then spent XP to nake items for the non-casters, they'd still walk out into every adventure and be more powerful and useful.

Low duration buffs means that spellcasters can't dominate the game and they have to have magic items to protect themselves.

If they do that, then at no point will they be helpless.

Unless, of course, you've decided to build totally broken cleric archers or venerable druids with Con. scores of 6 who need to spend the adventure in bear form or else they only have 30 HP at level 20.

I mean, if your point is that casters who break the game won't be able to break the game, you're really not getting any sympathy from me.

If spells last all day, then we can nerf them appropriately.

In a game without quicken spell, the contingency spell, or persistent spell, the divine power and divine favor spells might actually be FAIR, depending on how the DM sets up the encounters. I'm serious. However, in another game with the identical setup, the divine power and divine favor spells might be just as unfair as having them up all the time or on demand.

This would be just the way they run the game. The first game, if ninja assassins were attacking you all the time to the point where fighters actually slept in their heavy armor, divine power might not seem overpowering. However, in another game where the DM runs encounters where the party gets to spend an hour prepping for each fight because they're slowing clearing the mines of zombie hordes that never move, regular divine power would be just as overpowering as it would be if it was regular.

However, if divine power was persistent in both games, the spells would have an equal amount of fairness. That makes it easy to balance the spell, then.

You CAN do it such that you always judge regular divine power on its best-case scenario (always nerf it on the assumption that it will be run in the zombie-clearing game), but then the spell would be utterly worthless in the ninja-assassin game.

The only way to do buff spells, if you do them at all, to be both fair and something people will actually use is to make them so that they will have the same utility in the zombie game and the ninja game.

Anything else and you just might as well take buff spells off of the spellcasting list. Not that that's a bad idea in the first place, but you seem to want to have buff spells in the first place.

Lago, you have confused me.

In the ninja game, having a Divine Power/Favor up all the time means that you are always better than the fighters, and spend no actions in combat to become better.

In the zombie game, having them up all the time means that you are better than the fighters all the time, except you are spending a small fraction of your power rather than a huge chunk of your power to be better.

Under both of your examples, having all day Divine spells is broken, but for different reasons. That's not a standard of "fair" that I'm willing to settle for.

Now, in both types of sample games, round/level Divine spells would cost the caster either actions in combat(which have value) and/or lots of spell slots(which also have value, to a point).

Please explain your reasoning, because as you can see I have come to exact opposite conclusions.

Lago_AM3P at [unixtime wrote:1094853656[/unixtime]]If spells last all day, then we can nerf them appropriately.

This I'm not so sure about.

Sure, I mean you can make them totally suck, but then you've got to worry about every other buff entering the game ever. And everytime a new buff gets into your game, the cleric becomes more powerful, even if that buff sucks.

But it's basically not even a buff spell at this point, it's just a class feature that you can swap for a spell slot if you want. It's just handing the cleric permanent bonuses at no real cost.

And I ask you: Why would we want to do that? What pressing advantage is there to the initial listen check determining whether you live or die in every combat past 6th level? Why should spellcasters, and by extension parties which have spellcasters in them, be supernaturally vulnerable for more hours of the day?

If you're "helpless" without your buffs then you're proving K's point exactly, that casters don't need as much equipment. Where are your rings of protection, amulets of natural armor, your bracers of armor or cloaks of displacement? Where are they exactly? You thought "well I'll use my buffs to replace these items, because I'm a cheap bastard and now I can spend all my item money somewhere else."

Yeah, well now you actually get penalized for doing that as you should. If you want to be cheap on defenses then you deserve to get screwed over in an ambush, just like the fighter with no magic armor and no shield, rings or amulet. Why do casters deserve a free ride in your opinion?

Look, if "buff spells" are supposed to be balanced as a combat effect, then they are inherently unbalanced and wizards are way too powerful - because they don't always cost actual combat actions. Any time one character can get real combat actions without actually having to have any player character in harm's way you have a problem. And if only the spellcasters can do it, you've got a huge problem.

On the other hand, if buff spells are balanced as a special effect for why you kick ass to a similar degree as people of your level are supposed to, then you don't have those problems.

The Fighter puts on his armor, the wizard puts on his charms, and everyone goes out adventuring at a comparable power level. That's fine.

But if the Wizard is supposed to take the first round or three of the combat speeding up the party or something, then that's not fine. The Wizard asks everyone to lock the door, then he spends three rounds buffing up the party, and then they bust the door open and the Wizard shoots lightning at the enemies anyway! The Wizard ends up completely dominating play and is not only causing a much bigger shift in ass whupping than the other players - he's also taking up twice as much screen time.

And of course, if the Wizard is actually playing by the rules you're trying to make him play by - the Wizard will end up having a really boring time. Yeah, you got to bless the party, again. The player might as well not even be there - he can go out for pizza and the party can shake the wizard at problems when combat occurs. Whooptegoddamndoo.

No. Combat buff actions are shit. They will always be shit, and they will always ruin the game. No exceptions.

-Username17

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1094860606[/unixtime]]
On the other hand, if buff spells are balanced as a special effect for why you kick ass to a similar degree as people of your level are supposed to, then you don't have those problems.

You have other worse problems. They're a cheesy way for casters to save on equipment that they'd otherwise have to buy. So the cleric is better than a figther now just by burning all his spells on various buffs, and people have no counter to buffs. So you're limited to choices like "fighter" or "better fighter with spells". You can focus all your spell slots into combat buffs and just dominate everyone. There is no reason to ever be a fighter. For this paradigm to work, buffs would have to be giving out fractional bonuses, because your entire series of 1st level buffs would have to be worse than weapon focus. So assuming you used a bunch of first level buffs you'd be getting 1/2 an AC from shield of faith, 1/4 of an attack and damage bonus from divine favor and so forth. Even if every buff just gave a +1 that's way too much, since you're already ahead or equal to the fighter.

The Fighter puts on his armor, the wizard puts on his charms, and everyone goes out adventuring at a comparable power level. That's fine.

Assuming his charms cost money. Which of course, they don't when they're all day buffs. Not fine, not equal. Advantage wizard.

But if the Wizard is supposed to take the first round or three of the combat speeding up the party or something, then that's not fine. The Wizard asks everyone to lock the door, then he spends three rounds buffing up the party, and then they bust the door open and the Wizard shoots lightning at the enemies anyway! The Wizard ends up completely dominating play and is not only causing a much bigger shift in ass whupping than the other players - he's also taking up twice as much screen time.

Dude give it up... if they do that, then the enemies let them blow their wad behind the door, and then they let the buffs wear off in under 2 minutes and then they go in and kick thier asses.

This isn't the big problem yoiu make it out to be. Sure, it may work on dumb animals and stuff, but so does the fly spell and god knows what other caster tactics. Caster tactics beat nonintelligent monsters, and this is no exception.

Seriously wtf is the big deal? The monsters flee and come back in a few minutes after their spells are worn off. And how often are the PCs going to be the defenders like this anyway? It's not like they're just going to stand in one room and ring a big gong and all the monsters are forced to rush them. The monsters are going to set up ambushes in their own rooms and everything assuming you play them remotely smart. So if you want to lock yourself somewhere and blow your wad there, go for it... the monsters will just wait and you'll have used up your spell slots for nothing.

There are tactical counters to short term buffs, there are absolutely no tactical counters to all day buffs beyond dispelling and that takes casters.

And of course, if the Wizard is actually playing by the rules you're trying to make him play by - the Wizard will end up having a really boring time. Yeah, you got to bless the party, again. The player might as well not even be there - he can go out for pizza and the party can shake the wizard at problems when combat occurs. Whooptegoddamndoo.

This is why K wants them to be quickened actions. So you can buff and do something else that's useful. Did you even read the basic premise to this thread?

While contemplating a Frank-style D&D game--wherein combat schticks were separated from noncombat schticks and feats scale with level and a host of other ideas--I ran again into the problem of buff spells.

I'd already decided to limit spellcasting (other than combat spells as part of the spellcaster's combat schtick) to a per session limit (rather than the antiquated per day limit), but I was struggling as to what to do about teleport ambushes. I mean, really, this is this argument's crux, yes?

...And, really, I like the buffs-as-quickened-spells option. It fits my projected paradigm of spells lasting one combat, one scene, one session, or one senario.

In addition, just thinking out loud, were a spell to have the hypothetical duration of one combat, casting it before combat would mean the spell automatically ends... as there's no combat taking place. That's a complete elimination of teleport ambush mayhem as well as standard buff-and-bash ambush tactics with regards to spellcasters.

The idea of always-quickened buffs fits my theoretical paradigm perfectly. And, while I know this is a bit of a thread hijack, what are the flaws in this system based on the proposed paradigm?

Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1094895771[/unixtime]]
In addition, just thinking out loud, were a spell to have the hypothetical duration of one combat, casting it before combat would mean the spell automatically ends... as there's no combat taking place. That's a complete elimination of teleport ambush mayhem as well as standard buff-and-bash ambush tactics with regards to spellcasters.

The idea of always-quickened buffs fits my theoretical paradigm perfectly. And, while I know this is a bit of a thread hijack, what are the flaws in this system based on the proposed paradigm?

There aren't any balance problems really, it just feels a bit unorthodox and video game like. Though ultimately it might be our best method for balance. If you can't cast buffs until the combat screen comes up, then you shouldn't have a problem. Now, while it may seem like a video game at first, I think it's something PCs could easily get used to or whatever and it wouldn't really ruin anything flavor wise.

Now, the only problem you'd have is actually defining when combat actually begins. If for instance, you approach another group and start talking to them first, all the while casting quickened buffs while talking, is that considered pre-combat? Is surprise rounds considered in combat or pre combat, what if you don't make yourself seen in the first surprise round and prefer to stay hidden?

There are a lot of questions as far as what consitutes a combat in that system that you'd have to work out, and that would probably be your most difficult mechanical issue.

I assumed combat would begin when you rolled initiative for any reason. For example, if you're being chased or something, who goes first becomes important--and so initiative'd be rolled and you could cast buffs to help you run faster or whatever.

I mean, if you're limited to spells per session, you're really going to have to think hard about initiating combat at the session's start--which might even make the whole kick-down-the-door style of play a bit less common.

Also, spells per session is kind of a dangerous mechanic, and that's because it degenerates the efficiency of a wizard solely based on how fast your group is. In other words if you've got a large group that does a lot of roleplaying, you could take 4 hours to do something that might take a hack and slash group 1 hour to do, and it could very well roll over the time into next session. Or if you run 3 hour sessions instead of 9 hour sessions, you run into the same problem... basically your spells are oddly limited based on your real world schedules and that's not a good idea. I mean if the group really needed to, they'd just jerk around for the rest of the session doing nothing and wait until next session so they can get their spells back.

I'd balance spells by "per adventure" not "per session". Per session is way too unpredictable. Per adventure ensures that different groups with different playing speeds and different session lengths don't change the balance of the wizard class.

How about just making dispel magic always work? Boom, wizard's buffs gone, boom, fighter's armor inactive for 1d4 rounds. Of course, it has to be taken into account that such a party is really vulnerable, but it would certainly help when you are suddenly ambushed.

It'd also make dispelling something that didn't suck and take too many rolls to resolve.

Dispelling is always going to suck ass as an attack because spells that remove your opponent(s) from combat all together are available starting at first level.

So no, nothing you do to attempt to make dispelling your enemies more attractive is going to make that a good option. Dispelling is for saving your own party members from blindness, and that's it.

In reality, making dispelling better actually makes buffing magic slightly better; as it means that having buff spells on you is more likely to cause opponents to get fooled into taking combat actions "against" you which have no chance of taking you or your friends out of the combat.

-Username17

Surely dispelling helps make spells that remove your opponents from combat more effective?

I disagree that dispelling always has to suck ass, there are ways to make debuffing work well in the current spell system, especially given buffing clerics, druids etc are so prevalent.

You can do exactly what K is doing with buffs and make dispelling magic auto-quickened too. that seems like the perfect parrallel. So you aren't really losing anything.

You can also make debuffing like MDJ where it always works, and on an entire area, just minus the item destruction. So you can debuff the entire enemy group.

Just because you could potentially kill a guy with one spell doesn't automatically make nonlethal stuff useless. You have to consider what exactly are your chances of killing that guy with one spell. If they aren't that great, then you might not consider taking a long shot. It might be easier to just debuff the guy and go from there.

I mean sure finger of death and baleful poly are awesome and all, but if the guy just makes his save, you pretty much just wasted your action. Look at 2nd edition. Nobody really used save or die much at high level.

I look at it as a gambler's analogy. If you play the lottery you're always going to have that chance to really hit it big. You may turn a $1 ticket into millions. If you play blackjack you won't have that chance of instantly being set for life. However that doesn't mean that the lottery is innately superior as a choice. Your odds are much better that you'll actually win money playing blackjack.

Save or dies are like playing the lottery. You close your eyes and hope to hit the jackpot. And merely because the lottery offers that instant win chance doesn't mean that it's automatically the superior game from a game theory point of view.

We don't go around saying 3.5 vorpal blades are unbelievably powerful and superior to any other choice because you've got a chance of winning it all in one strike, so why should we do it here?

If save or die spells are better than everything, it just means that saves are too low. But paradigm wise there are plenty of reasons that you may want to use an always non-lethal debuff as opposed to a generic save or die.

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1095062712[/unixtime]]Dispelling is always going to suck ass as an attack because spells that remove your opponent(s) from combat all together are available starting at first level.

But that's an argument not to cast buff spells in the first place - you don't need them, b/c you can take out opponents before the buffs matter. It's inherently inconsistent w/ a "buff spells are overpowered" position.

IMX, "save or die" spells are gambler spells - you win, or you lose, based on a roll o' the dice. You can manipulate the odds on the roll, but eventually the odds catch up to you.

Save or Die spells, in a game where magic is really about all there is like 3.5, eventually don't work. Matter of odds and rolling the dice. Then the party dies, b/c the only PC's that really matter are the ones who cast the spells. Works OK for NPC's, b/c they're essentially "dead" whether they win the combat or not. By and large, they're out of the campaign except for a possible occuring role as "And featuring, tonight only, that old BBEG."

Cleric buffs in particular let you buff and probably kill the BBEG the round after you buff. This means Buff spells are essentially Save or Die spells cast on the second round, or on the first round w/ enough fancy gimmicks. My last PC, a 9th level cleric, was doing, hmm, 6d6+40 or so IIRC w/ +30 or so BAB, w/ massive reach, on the second round of combat - usually, on the first. Without really doing anything fancy.

If that PC had all the buffs dispelled before the 1st round attack, he'd be screwed - out 2d6+36 or so damage per attack, or 4d6+72 per round. At 9th level, that's a heal spell for the BBEG, cast every round.

It's hard for me to see how Dispel Magic wouldn't be just as effective as any other spell the BBEG could cast, if it actually did something.

Dispelling doesn't work effectively vs buffs. At best, it is used to remove spells on the field that are messing up your tactical situation.

For example, an area dispel that hits like 10 summoned monsters is great. Its like a death effect, but it hurts summoned Undead and stuff with great saves and Spell Resistance and you don't have to worry about the crazy death magic rules like max HD and stuff.

Negating a Solid Fog so that you don't have to "sit the fvck out for three rounds" is also a pretty good app.

Its also good to negate single-target baneful effects that really fvck you up, like Charm or Dominate or Blindness which can be cured by specific spells, but its easier if you have a catch-all spell like Dispel to nail them.

THM wrote:But that's an argument not to cast buff spells in the first place - you don't need them, b/c you can take out opponents before the buffs matter. It's inherently inconsistent w/ a "buff spells are overpowered" position.

No it isn't. A Buff spell requires you to have line of effect to your friends (or in some cases, to yourself). An attack spell or debuff requires line of effect to an opponent.

So a Buff spell allows you to get combat benefit when neither you nor your opponent can actually affect each other. And that's why it's overpowered. Not because it's too good when you are in combat relative to an attack spell, but because it can allow you to gain the benefits of being in combat when you are not in combat and aren't therefore suffering the disadvantages and vulnerabilities of actually being in harm's way.

-Username17

Let me put it another way. Pre-combat buff spells are overpowered because they last. Dispel Magic never really gets rid of them. That means those pre-combat buffs last and last and last, and there's nothing to do about them.

Buff spells can't be overpowered if "Save or Die spells" mean that dispelling those buffs is a useless action. IOW, if dispel magic is so useless that you shouldn't even cast it to remove a buff b/c Save or Die spells will just kill somebody anyway, why would you bother to cast the buff spell in the first place? You should just cast a save or die spell - which are readily available.

The real issue is that Dispel Magic is flat-out useless when it comes to buffs. That causes problems. If Dispel Magic worked, teh Buff Ambush wouldn't be nearly as problematic. If you blow half your spells on buffing up, get the drop on somebody, and then lose all your buffs if the target survives the alpha strike, you're in real trouble. The target is down certain resources (hit points), but so are you (half your spells). This makes the buff ambush much riskier.

Thinking this over while I type this, getting a combat bonus prior to combat starting only gives a benefit because that bonus can't easily be taken away. Buffs work b/c they have a huge benefit b/c they take effect over time. A Dispel Magic that worked removes that benefit.

However, the other side of this is that a Dispel Magic that worked would make all buffs suck. You could blow 3 rounds buffing to lose it all in round 4. To compensate, you could (for example) have Dispel Magic dispel any magic effect cast more than 1d4 rounds before DM is cast, making it's use on buffs cast during combat more problematic.

Buffs are balanced by the fact that you can lock a door, cast a few spells, and you've turned that downtime into small amounts of advantage(just like a fighter can move to higher ground, set up an enemy for a bull rush off a cliff, or any other "tactical non-combat action). I mean, being able to get a +4 shield bonus in the next combat is nice(Shield), but stunning a bunch of dudes in a AoE(Color Spray) is downright deadly, and the two effects don't even compare in terms of tactical advantage if they were combat actions.

Dispel magic works on the idea that sometimes knocking down a spell or two can win the combat. A guy flying via Polymorph is one inconvienced bastard if you dispel the effect, as is a Magic Jarred guy who's orginal body is dead and now he's making your life painful by possessing your henchmen.

Debuffing doesn't work based on first principles. I mean, why would you cast a spell to possibly remove small bonuses? Tactical spells like wall spells and killing magic are tactically more sound, as they either give you time to cast a few buffs or act to eliminate an enemy.

THM wrote:Buff spells can't be overpowered if "Save or Die spells" mean that dispelling those buffs is a useless action.

I don't see how that follows at all. If you can buff yourself up while in "quasi combat" and get some moderate bonuses, that's overpowered because it's something for nothing. It's not a real cost in time, because you couldn't be targetting your enemies anyway.

But when you go and dispel it, you're in combat. Not quasi combat, real combat. So it has a real cost. Even if it takes a quick action that's still a real cost in time.

And it has a zero percent chance of killing anybody, so whatever the fvck it is that it's doing, it's a waste of your god damned time. As soon as you could be killing your opponents you should be, and anything else you are doing is an insult to your fellow players.

-Username17